Brian
Martin

With each death of a US soldier in
Iraq and each report about the absence of Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction, it becomes more obvious that the attack of Iraq has
backfired on the US administration. But the signs of backfire have
been apparent for a long time.

Before the invasion there were
massive protest rallies, with the largest single-day numbers in
history on 15 February, including large numbers of people who had
never joined a rally before. Public opinion in most countries was
strongly against the attack. Many governments opposed it, most
prominently several key members of the UN Security Council.
Interviews in 20 countries in May 2003 revealed that "in most
countries, opinions of the U.S. are markedly lower than they were a
year ago. The war has widened the rift between Americans and Western
Europeans, further inflamed the Muslim world, softened support for
the war on terrorism, and significantly weakened global public
support for the pillars of the post-World War II era - the U.N. and
the North Atlantic alliance."[1]

Attacks of all sorts can backfire,
especially when they are perceived as unjust. But as well as being a
potential outcome of an attack, backfire can be studied as a
process. Attackers often seek to prevent backfire, whereas
opponents of the attack seek to magnify it. Backfire is an ongoing
struggle, a sort of game. The key is to understand the rules of the
game.

A note on terminology: I avoid
calling the attack on Iraq a "war" because the conflict was so
one-sided. In western media reports, the attackers were
conventionally called "the coalition." Here I usually refer to the
"US government" because it was the prime mover, with the British
government playing second fiddle; the Australian and Polish military
contingents were token and mostly unremarked. I avoid referring to
"the US" as an actor - as in "the US said" or "the US attacked" -
because it doesnt distinguish between the government and the
people. But even to refer to the US government as the attacker is
misleading, because it was a relatively small group within the
government that made the key decisions.

I begin by outlining the basic
process of backfire using historical examples. Then I examine the
Iraq case, looking at five principal ways in which the attackers
tried to inhibit backfire.

Backfire: the
process

On 21 March 1960, white South
African police in the township of Sharpeville opened fire on a large
crowd of black Africans protesting against pass laws, killing perhaps
a hundred and wounding many more. This massacre reverberated around
the world, triggering an enormous upsurge in global anti-apartheid
action.[2]
The massacre can be said to have backfired in that it discredited
apartheid and led to an expansion of opposition.

Two factors are central to this
backfire effect. The first is that the attack is seen to be unjust
or, more generally, a violation of a widely held norm. In Sharpeville
just prior to the massacre, there were clashes between police and
black activists, including one in which several activists were
killed. There were deep-seated misperceptions. Organisers of the
rally did not plan an attack on the police, but many police believed
they were under serious threat. Leadership on both sides was weak.
Some protesters threw stones. Despite the lack of nonviolent
discipline, though, nothing that the protesters did warranted
sustained shooting without warning, with many crowd members shot in
the back. The shooting was grossly disproportionate to anything done
by the protesters and this was seen as unjust.

Across many cultures and
historical periods, there appears to be a common sense of
injustice.[3]
The widespread reaction to the Sharpeville massacre is readily
explained as due to a perception of injustice. However, not everyone
perceives things the same way, no matter how blatant the situation
may appear to some. Within white South Africa, where blacks were seen
as inferior, and especially within the police, blame for the killings
was attributed to "agitators" who had egged on the crowd and created
a serious threat to the police.

The second factor central to the
backfire effect is availability of information to relevant audiences.
News of the Sharpeville massacre was immediately available: many
people had witnessed the events or had heard about them via reports
by police and journalists, even though the police did make an effort
to block information flow.

The Sharpeville massacre is just
one of many examples in which attacks on largely nonviolent
protesters backfire.

 The 1905 massacre of
protesters in St Petersburg, Russia, triggered a massive increase in
opposition to the Czars regime, including revolutionary action,
first in the cities and eventually in the
countryside.[4]

 The beating of satyagrahis
participating in the 1930 salt march in India, led by Gandhi,
weakened British popular support for colonial rule.[5]

 The 1998 police shooting of
protesting students at Trisaki University, Indonesia triggered a
massive expansion in the opposition to President Suharto, who stepped
down not long after.[6]

Nonviolence scholar Gene Sharp
called this process "political jiu-jitsu," in analogy with the sport
of jiu-jitsu in which the opponents strength and force are used
against them. Examining hundreds of historical examples, Sharp found
that political jiu-jitsu was such a predictable consequence of attack
on nonviolent activists that he included it as a key stage in what he
called "the dynamics of nonviolent action."[7]

This same sort of process also
occurs in cases that do not fit the category of nonviolent action. In
1991, several Los Angeles police beat a fleeing black motorist named
Rodney King, causing him serious injuries. This was not exceptional
in itself; in preceding years, millions of dollars had been paid, as
a result of judgements, jury verdicts or settlements, to claimants
alleging police brutality by members of the Los Angeles Police
Department. However, the beating of Rodney King was captured on video
by George Holliday, one of many witnesses, and broadcast on
television shortly after, causing outrage among many
viewers.[8]

Rodney King was not a nonviolent
activist, so, strictly speaking, Sharps framework of political
jiu-jitsu does not apply to the reaction to his beating. Clearly,
though, the same sorts of dynamics are involved: outrage when
evidence of what appears to be a gross injustice is available to
concerned people. I use the term "backfire" here to include all such
cases in which people react against what they perceive as an unjust
attack. It can occur in a wide variety of contexts, for example in
response to censorship[9]
and torture.[10]

A related concept is "blowback," a
term used to describe unforeseen adverse consequences of government
policies, especially covert operations.[11]
More generally, policies can be assessed as counterproductive,
according to some criteria.[12]
These concepts diverge from "backfire," as used here, in that the
centrepiece of the backfire process is an attack that can be
perceived to be unjust.

Many attackers realise,
consciously or intuitively, that their attacks can backfire, and take
measures to mitigate this effect. However, it is not necessary to
know the motivations of attackers in order to analyse backfire
dynamics; all that is required is observation of actions that do
indeed have the potential to inhibit backfire. There are five
principal ways to inhibit backfire.

1. The attack is hidden, for
example by secrecy, censorship and false reports, to minimise
awareness of its existence or significance.

Immediately after the Sharpeville
massacre, police cordoned off the township and prevented entry of
journalists. They also covered up the use of "dum-dum" bullets that
expand on impact, causing extensive injuries. The uproar over the
Rodney King beating was an anomaly because it was videotaped; police
are less likely to engage in brutal beatings when independent
witnesses are obviously present.

2. The target is devalued, for
example by destroying its reputation or even dehumanising it, to
create the impression that the target deserves being attacked or that
it doesnt really matter.

Under apartheid in South Africa,
many whites did not consider blacks to have the same human rights as
themselves. Rodney King was denigrated as a petty criminal and, in
the months following his beating, was arrested several times in ways
that harmed his reputation.[13]

3. Events are reinterpreted, with
the alternative interpretation being that an attack didnt occur
or no injustice was involved, for example that the victim was
actually the aggressor.

The South African police blamed
the Sharpeville massacre on black "agitators." Critics of Rodney King
said that he was a "felony evader" and a "monster" who was an
immediate threat to the police who beat him.

4. Official bodies undertake
investigations or make pronouncements that legitimate the
attack.

After the Sharpeville massacre, a
commission of inquiry was held and, through its assumptions and
superficial investigation, minimised the implications of the events.
Four police officers twice faced criminal charges in court over the
Rodney King beating, a focus on individuals that diverted attention
from wider problems with Los Angeles Police Department use-of-force
policies and practices.

5. The target, witnesses and
supporters are intimidated so that concern about the attacks is less
easily voiced.

Following the Sharpeville
massacre, South African police went through the township arresting
and beating up activists and others. Also, they forcibly removed
injured protesters from hospitals. Following the Rodney King beating,
in the course of the trials of Los Angeles police, many potential
witnesses refused to testify due to fear of reprisals.

Having listed methods of
inhibiting backfire, the next stage is to examine
"counter-inhibitors," namely ways of promoting backfire. That is
normally the aim of those who are opposed to the attacks.
Counter-inhibitors include exposing the attack, validating the
victims, exposing double standards, avoiding reliance on official
inquiries, and resisting and exposing intimidation.

With this framework, it is
possible to systematically analyse the attack on Iraq, noting how the
attackers attempted to inhibit backfire and how opponents attempted
to maximise it. There is such a wealth of material on the events that
only a few of many possible examples can be presented
here.

Cover-up

Some wars are carried out in
secrecy or by use of proxy armies, limiting the prospect for
backfire. For example, the US government financially supported the
French military in Vietnam for years until its defeat in 1954, and
subsequently supported the South Vietnamese government and military
before, during and after direct participation by US troops. The low
profile of this involvement is one key reason why, from the late
1940s until the mid 1960s, opposition to US-government-supported
attacks in Vietnam was limited.[14]

However, there was no prospect of
covering up the 2003 attack on Iraq. Throughout 2002, long in advance
of the actual assault, the US government increasingly signalled its
intention to conquer Iraq. This made the likelihood of backfire much
greater, at least if people perceived the attack as
unjust.

Nevertheless, cover-ups played a
significant role. It is often perceived that the attack on Iraq only
began in March 2003, but actually attacks occurred throughout the
period after the first Gulf war, in 1991, until 2003. This included
bombings of Iraq that seldom attracted news coverage or protest.
After the first Gulf war, the US and British governments unilaterally
set up "no-fly" zones - no flying for Iraqi aircraft - over parts of
Iraq, though these had no legal status, and made thousands of
overflights between 1991 and 2003, including regular bombings leading
to many civilian casualties.[15]

Some attacks on Iraq in the period
1991-2003 were undertaken covertly, but others were made openly,
sometimes with fanfare such as the bombings beginning in December
1998. For these latter attacks, the description "cover-up" is not
quite appropriate, but still captures some of the dynamics. By being
a matter of routine and usually operating below the threshold of
interest for news media and peace groups, the attacks largely escaped
scrutiny and seldom triggered outrage. The very normality and
banality of the attacks served as a sort of de facto
cover-up.

Such de facto cover-ups applied to
many other matters involving Iraq. The US governments support
for Saddam Husseins regime throughout the 1980s was, following
the Iraqi military invasion of Kuwait in 1990, seldom mentioned by US
government officials, especially in the 2002-2003 lead-up to attack.
Nor did officials mention the US governments unwillingness to
topple Saddam Hussein in 1991 when, just after the first Gulf War, it
had the opportunity. This silence about earlier complicity with the
regime became more salient as US officials castigated the Iraqi
regime for having biological and chemical weapons and for using
chemical weapons against Iranian troops and Kurdish civilians in the
1980s. Little was said by official sources about the role of US and
British governments and companies in supplying materials for the
Iraqi weapons programmes. For example, in President George W.
Bushs address to the nation of 17 March 2003, on the eve of the
attack on Iraq, he stated "This regime has already used weapons of
mass destruction against Iraqs neighbors and against
Iraqs people."[16]
However, he did not mention that this occurred in the 1980s when the
US government supported the Iraqi regime, nor that the US government
covered up the chemical weapons attack.[17]
(Similarly, the British government covered up its role in building
the chemical plant in Iraq used for production of chemical
weapons.[18])
In his address, Bush did not mention that the US government in 2001
undermined international efforts to develop a biological weapons
convention, nor that the US has the worlds largest biological
weapons programme.

The UN sanctions imposed on Iraq
beginning in 1990 resulted in enormous levels of suffering and death,
with figures around a million extra deaths over a decade commonly
being quoted, but with no apparent impact on the rule of Saddam
Hussein. Such a death toll might have been treated, in other
circumstances, as a emergency warranting humanitarian intervention;
the process of de facto cover-up - namely, lack of attention or
concern by government officials - turned this into an unremarkable
occurrence or a "price that had to be paid."[19]

The investigation of Iraqi weapons
of mass destruction was subject to more conventional cover-ups and
disinformation, at least by some accounts.[20]
The lack of evidence of effective, deliverable biological, chemical
or nuclear weapons in Iraq was covered up by false and misleading
claims, for example of Iraqi importation of uranium from Niger. US
spying under the cover of the UN weapons inspectors was also covered
up.

Cover-up is greatly aided when
mass media report US government pronouncements with no critical
analysis or historical background, and do not run stories presenting
other perspectives. This is typical of much western reporting,
especially in the US.[21]

The counter to these forms of
cover-up is straightforward: exposure of information, for example of
US government support for Saddam Hussein in the 1980s. Some writers
and activists made great efforts to expose the horrific consequences
of the sanctions. Finally, as mentioned, the conquest of Iraq was
undertaken openly and signalled well in advance. In these
circumstances, cover-up did not work very well to inhibit backfire
from the attack.

Devaluing the
target

The most obvious method of
devaluing Iraq as a target was by demonising Saddam Hussein. There is
no doubt that Saddam was a brutal and dangerous dictator, guilty of
gross human rights violations and launching wars against Iran and
Kuwait. Even so, US government officials painted Saddam as an even
greater monster, for example by comparisons with Hitler. Bush in a
talk in Prague on 20 November 2002 said, "Czechs and Slovaks learned
through the harsh experience of 1938, ... that aggression left
unchecked by the great democracies can rob millions of their liberty
and their lives." He went on to say, "A dictator who has used weapons
of mass destruction on his own people must not be allowed to produce
or possess those weapons. We will not permit Saddam Hussein to
blackmail and/or terrorize nations which love
freedom."[22]
This was an implicit comparison between Hitler and Saddam Hussein, at
least as interpreted by reporters.[23]
Similarly, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in an interview with
The Guardian, drew parallels between confronting fascism in
the 1930s and confronting Iraq.[24]

The comparison with Hitler was
misleading in more than one respect. Hitler was a far greater danger
to the world because he commanded the extremely powerful German
military machine and embarked on a programme of conquest; Saddam,
though probably more brutal personally, commanded only the mediocre
Iraqi military, with limited capacity for aggression after 1991. To
compare Saddam with Hitler, as dangers to the world, was to confuse
personal evil with state capacities. Many torturers and serial
killers are just as evil personally as Saddam or Hitler, but they do
not pose more than a local danger to the world.

Opponents of the attack on Iraq
did not try to argue that Saddam was virtuous. Instead, their
response can be summarised by the questions "Why Iraq?" and "Why
(attack) now?" They pointed to double standards: there are plenty of
brutal dictators in the world, including some who rule countries
allied in the "war on terrorism," such as Pakistan and Uzbekistan.
Critics questioned why Iraq was singled out, among all the
worlds repressive regimes, for attack. Double standards were
also involved in demonising Saddam, given that in the 1980s, when he
had been just as ruthless, he had been an ally.

The demonisation of Saddam no
doubt helped convince some people to support the attack on Iraq.
Others, though, used the double standard test to draw an opposite
conclusion.

Interpreting the
attack

The attack on Iraq was perceived
by many as a case of the worlds sole superpower and possessor
of overwhelming military force conquering a relatively weak country
that posed no immediate threat. The attack was seen as unjust because
it was illegal and because it was disproportionate to any threat
posed by Iraq.

To counter this perception,
supporters of the attack offered a series of interpretations of what
was going on. Whether these interpretations are considered to be
honest views or as calculated public relations,[25]
they operated to reduce backfire.

For a long time, the main theme
was that Iraqi militarism was a threat to the world, including to the
US, especially via weapons of mass destruction. This cleverly
reinterpreted the attackers as the targets, and the target, Iraq, as
the attacker. The attack on Iraq then could be interpreted as a form
of defence, an interpretation that was formalised as the doctrine of
pre-emption.[26]

The interpretation that the Iraqi
regime was the (potential) attacker was pursued in various ways,
including reference to Iraqi military use of chemical weapons in the
1980s, claims that evidence for Iraqi weapons programmes existed and
claims that the UN weapons inspection process was not working.
Underlying the ongoing claims by US and other officials was the
assumption that the primary danger was from Iraq, indeed such an
overwhelming and immediate danger that war was required and that any
other course of action constituted appeasement.

At one point, inspectors found
that some Iraqi al-Samoud II missiles, in testing, travelled further
than the 150-kilometre limit placed on them after the first Gulf war:
in particular, that they could travel up to 183 kilometres. Iraqi
officials claimed that this was because the missiles had no payload.
However, US and British officials made great play over this evidence
of a threat - the missiles might be able to deliver biological or
chemical weapons - and over Saddams alleged unwillingness to
disarm, even though a 183-kilometre range was far short of what could
reach Israel, much less the US. The key point here is that the focus
was entirely on the Iraqi military threat.

In the psychological process of
projection, a person denies a certain undesirable part of their
personality and instead attributes it to others, and then attacks
them.[27]
It could be said that US government officials, in planning an attack
on Iraq, denied their own aggression and instead attributed it to the
Iraqi regime, which was seen as so dangerous that it had to be
attacked, and encouraged others to use the same process of
projection.

Language played a big role in
attempts to justify the attack. During the Cold War, the expression
"weapons of mass destruction" referred exclusively to nuclear
weapons. In the lead up to the attack on Iraq, US government
officials expanded the meaning to include biological and chemical
weapons, even though there were no examples where biological or
chemical weapons had ever caused or were likely to cause "mass
destruction" approaching the scale routinely achieved using
conventional weapons.[28]
Other US-government favoured expressions included "regime change"
(rather than "government overthrow"), "death squads" (instead of
"fedayeen"), "thugs" (instead of "troops") and "liberation" (instead
of "conquest" or "occupation").[29]

The second main argument used by
the US government to justify the attack was that the Iraqi government
was supplying weapons of mass destruction to terrorists, or was
capable of doing so. Bush in his address to the nation just before
the attack stated, "The regime has aided, trained, and
harbored terrorists, including operatives of al
Qaeda."[30]
Carefully crafted statements gave the impression that Saddam Hussein
was implicated in the September 11 attacks - polls showed that many
US citizens believed this was the case[31]
- though no substantive evidence was ever presented to show any link
between al Qaeda and the Iraqi regime.[32]

A third argument was that Iraq
must be attacked to liberate Iraqis from Saddam Hussein.

Although many people were
persuaded by one or more of these interpretations of the attack, many
others found them wanting. Critics presented evidence of the absence
of any serious threat from Iraq, of the effectiveness of the UN
weapons inspection process, of Osama bin Ladens hostility to
the secular Iraqi regime, and of fraudulent documents used to make
the case against Saddam Hussein.[33]

Critics also pointed to double
standards. Iraqs nuclear weapons programme was nonexistent or
at least far from making a bomb; why was it seen as such an urgent
threat when known weapons states, including Pakistan, Israel, China
and indeed the US itself, were not subject to the same
strictures?[34]
Why was Iraqs meagre potential to make deliverable chemical and
biological weapons seen as such a threat when dozens of other
countries had a greater capacity?

As for the alleged need to
liberate Iraqi, why not also undertake wars to liberate Pakistanis or
Uzbekis, among others?

Of the huge outpouring of words
leading up to the attack on Iraq, a large proportion were about
interpretation of what was going on. Those who supported an attack
presented evidence and, just as importantly, made assumptions that
framed attack as necessary, just, even emancipatory. Opponents of the
attack countered these interpretations using evidence and exposure of
double standards. They also presented alternative interpretations,
including that the attack was about US access to Iraqi oil, about US
power in the Middle East, about revenge, about US world hegemony or
about diverting US public attention away from domestic economic
problems and scandals.

For many commentators, the case
for the invasion involved so many transparent lies and contradictions
that they found it hard to take seriously and so responded with
humour, such as in the British Channel 4 television comedy "Between
Iraq and a Hard Place" of January 2003 (http://www.channel4.com/news/2003/special_reports/iraq_hard_place.html).
In a Doonesbury strip, an instructor of CIA trainees says,
"Were here to serve the President. When he asks us to jump,
what does the C.I.A. reply?" Dismissing the answer "How high?" the
instructor says "No. Thats Congress. We say, Into which
country?" In July 2003, inserting "weapons of mass destruction"
into the google.com search engine led to a fake error message saying,
"These weapons of mass destruction cannot be displayed," with a
series of mordant options for fixing the problem.

Official
channels

When a court makes a ruling, many
people presume that justice is being done. The same applies when some
other official body, such as an auditor, an ombudsman or a commission
of inquiry, makes a ruling. Official channels give a stamp of
approval for decisions. In quite a few cases, though, official
channels are actually quite biased. For example, wealthy individuals
and corporations can hire expensive legal counsel and obtain better
results in court than others. Yet despite known biases, many official
channels give the appearance of dispensing justice.

For these reasons, official
channels can be remarkably effective tools for inhibiting backfires.
In the aftermath of the Sharpeville massacre, the government moved
immediately to set up an official inquiry, in part "to head off any
sympathy demonstrations and protests that could reasonably be
expected in the wake of public reaction."[35]
Formal inquiries, once established, take time, so that passions,
kindled after an outrageous event, cool.

Setting up an inquiry carries
risks. "While any commission of inquiry carried the risk of wholesale
condemnation of the government and the whole apartheid system, such
an exercise could also be turned to advantage by mobilising support
for the ruling party."[36]
The commission into the Sharpeville massacre needed to be compliant,
from the governments point of view, but not so compliant that
it discredited itself in the eyes of observers. A total whitewash of
the police could be just as damaging to the government as a stinging
attack.

The Independent Commission on the
Los Angeles Police Department, set up after the Rodney King beating,
was quite critical of the department.[37]
On the other hand, the initial court acquittal of the police officers
who beat Rodney King led to tragedy: the decision lacked credibility
among black community members who had seen the video of the beating,
and a major riot ensued. President George Bush Sr immediately
announced his support for a second criminal prosecution of the same
officers, a stance that seemed a response to the backlash from the
first trials verdict.

After the Iraqi army invaded and
occupied Kuwait in 1990, the United Nations Security Council endorsed
the use of force against the invaders. This gave credibility to the
US-led assault in 1991. Although many people favoured other measures
against Iraq, notably sanctions, the existence of a UN endorsement
made a big difference in justifying the war.

In 2002-2003, though, there was no
immediate pretext for attacking Iraq: no hard evidence of Iraqi
weapons of mass destruction, no immediate risk of an Iraqi military
attack on the US, no illegal Iraqi invasion or occupation of
neighbouring countries. An attack in these circumstances could
backfire. Obtaining UN approval for an attack would greatly reduce
this backfire.

The US government decided in 2002
to seek a UN resolution permitting an attack. This can be interpreted
as an attempt to reduce the backlash from unilaterally launching an
illegal, unjust assault. If UN approval had been obtained, it would
have made a big difference in many peoples minds. To be sure,
some people supported military action even without UN approval and
others opposed it under any circumstances, but opinion polls showed a
substantial middle ground of people who supported an invasion with UN
endorsement but opposed it otherwise.

As noted, official channels may
give only the appearance of fairness. The UN is very far from being a
neutral, independent body, as many analyses reveal,[38]
and the UN Security Council is even less neutral and independent. The
US government applied its formidable persuasive powers - primarily
threats and bribes, along with tendentious evidence - in an attempt
to obtain a resolution authorising attack, and British prime minister
Tony Blair added his eloquence.[39]
Though there was some reporting of the arm-twisting tactics used by
US officials to obtain a favourable UN resolution,[40]
many people would have been unaware of these behind-the-scenes
machinations. UN endorsement remained a potent tool for legitimating
an invasion.

However, unlike previous occasions
in which the Security Council was more susceptible to pressure, this
time most of the member governments did not acquiesce; the existence
of massive popular opposition to war played a significant role in
stiffening the resolve of government leaders. Thus, when the
US-government-led "coalition" launched its attack on Iraq without UN
endorsement, it had even less legitimacy than if no approach to the
UN had been made at all.

The delicacy of the "politics of
endorsement" is suggested by the US governments hot-and-cold
approach to seeking a vote at the Security Council. Not long before
the attack was initiated, US officials said they would bring a
resolution before the Council. But then, as it appeared that the vote
would go against an attack, the resolution was not put
forward.[41]
For minimising public backlash, it is better to have no vote at all
than a hostile vote. Even so, having sought UN endorsement for
months, the failure to obtain it made the backfire effect even more
powerful.

Another example of the role of
official channels is the UN team, headed by Hans Blix, sent to Iraq
in 2002 to look for weapons of mass destruction. If the team had
found damning evidence, it would have provided convenient
legitimation for an attack. However, by failing to report substantial
Iraqi violations of UN-imposed conditions, Blix became an obstacle to
US government plans. Blix himself later claimed that some US
officials had tried to discredit the UN team - and him personally -
implicitly recognising that his teams work was valued by the US
government only for its potential role in legitimating an
attack.[42]

Intimidation and
bribery

If an attack can backfire when it
is perceived by significant audiences to be unjust, then the addition
of intimidation and bribery to the mix is unlikely to make the attack
seem more just, given that these means are widely seen as
illegitimate. Nevertheless, intimidation and bribery can be effective
if carried out behind the scenes. Given that the cover-up is a key
means of inhibiting backfire, covering up intimidation and bribery is
a natural accompaniment.

One possible target is the
opponent. Many attacks are both preceded and followed by threats and
sometimes by bribes for the target to keep quiet. As described
earlier, Iraq came under repeated military attack over the years
1991-2003.

Another target is commentators,
who may be threatened or wooed. It is well known that journalists who
write uncritically about US government policy can be rewarded with
greater access to officials, whereas those who are too critical may
be penalised by denial of access. Those journalists who venture into
certain sensitive areas may suffer censorship and
dismissal.[43]
NBC dismissed veteran journalist Peter Arnett for making a few
comments during the conquest that, though innocuous enough in the
eyes of many, were labelled as treacherous by high officials. His
treatment was an object lesson for anyone who might stray from the
mainstream. US military forces in Iraq appeared to attack a number of
independent journalists, killing several.[44]

Experts who do not toe the line
can come under attack. US government officials exposed the cover of
covert CIA operative Valerie Plame apparently as a reprisal against
her husband Joe Wilson, who publicly challenged official claims that
Niger supplied uranium to Iraq.[45]
US troops in Iraq have been threatened with reprisals should they be
openly critical of US government policy.[46]

Yet another target is members of
official bodies. The bribes and threats used to pressure members of
the UN Security Council have already been mentioned.

Intimidation and bribery are risky
strategies: if revealed, they can discredit those who use them.
Therefore, a central task for those who want to magnify the backfire
effect is to expose the use of these unsavoury means.

Conclusion

The 2003 conquest of Iraq
generated enormous hostility around the world, a popular and
political reaction that can be interpreted as an example of how
attacks can backfire. Much of this hostility can be attributed to the
attack being perceived as unjust and disproportionate to anything the
Iraqi regime had done, or threatened to do, to the
attackers.

Various measures taken by
attackers can inhibit this sort of backfire effect. Five key methods
are covering up the attack, devaluing the target, reinterpreting
events, using official channels and intimidating critics. In the case
of the attack on Iraq, each of these methods was used, but without
great success. The impending invasion was announced to the world, so
cover-up played a limited role, though it was important in limiting
awareness of the ongoing attacks from 1991. The demonisation of
Saddam Hussein was perhaps the most effective tool in inhibiting
backfire, convincing many people that attack was justified, but was
powerfully countered by exposure of double standards such as via the
queries "Why Iraq?" and "Why now?" Various arguments were advanced
for attacking Iraq: to prevent Iraqi aggressive use of weapons of
mass destruction, to prevent Iraqi government support for terrorists,
and to liberate the Iraqi people. However, these arguments were not
very effective, partly because of transparent inconsistencies and
partly because of powerful counter-arguments. An attempt was made to
legitimate the invasion by obtaining UN endorsement, but this failed,
causing further delegitimation. Finally, there was some intimidation
of critics of the attack, but this did not appear to significantly
reduce the overall volume of criticism.

The backfire framework helps to
unify understanding of the ways that attacks are supported and
opposed. To a casual consumer of the media, the lead-up to the
invasion of Iraq could well have appeared bewildering, with
multitudinous claims and counter-claims involving Saddam Hussein,
weapons of mass destruction, disagreement between governments and so
forth. The concept of backfire brings some order to this messy
picture by focussing attention on the struggle over perceptions,
specifically the perception of an attack as unjust or
disproportionate. Attackers use various means that prevent or
undermine such a perception, or in other words that inhibit backfire:
control of information (cover-up); rhetoric (devaluation of the
target; reinterpretations); official channels; and exercise of
economic and political power (intimidation).

An analysis in terms of backfire
sheds light on how to go about opposing unjust attacks. Basically,
each of the methods used to inhibit backfire can be countered.
Exposing cover-ups is crucially important and points to the vital
role played by investigative journalists, whistleblowers, outspoken
advocates, researchers and independent commentators. To expose
cover-ups can be very difficult: persistence in both gathering and
distributing information in a credible fashion is vital. Countering
rhetorical means of justifying attack - devaluing the target and
reinterpreting events - requires knowledge, commitment and eloquence.
Commentary about an impending attack, or one that has already
occurred, is far from irrelevant; instead, it is crucial in shaping
attitudes that influence whether an attack proceeds or, if it does,
how and whether future attacks occur.

The role of official channels for
legitimating attacks is the most challenging for opponents. There are
two basic approaches to maximise backfire: to influence the official
body to refuse to endorse the attack, or to undermine the credibility
of the official body or its deliberations. The first approach is
often more effective in the short term but, for official bodies whose
appearance of fairness and neutrality is a facade, the second
approach may be better. Finally, a good way to oppose intimidation is
to expose it, thereby making it backfire.

This analysis of backfire dynamics
points to the crucial role of information and communication. Attacks
backfire because of perceptions of injustice and
disproportionality. Therefore, secrecy, disinformation,
spin-doctoring and public relations may be of much greater importance
for attackers than normally realised. This may apply in repressive
regimes as well as in more open societies, as suggested by the role
of secrecy and state propaganda in the Soviet Union and the secrecy
in which the Nazis carried out their exterminations. The importance
of official channels, even the most transparently fraudulent ones,
for justifying injustice is suggested by Stalins show trials
and the facade of elections in dictatorial regimes.

Backfire analysis can give a new
appreciation of the diverse means of opposing attacks. Opposition to
the attack on Iraq was most obvious in massive rallies throughout the
world and in resistance by many governments to joining or endorsing
an invasion. These forms of resistance cannot easily be separated
from an ongoing struggle over information and meaning, involving news
reports, articles, letters, leaflets, emails and everyday
conversations. This struggle will continue long after the conquest of
Iraq, for example in the ongoing debate over the presence or absence
of weapons of mass destruction.

In many cases, such as the
Sharpeville massacre and the beating of Rodney King, backfire occurs
after the attack. In the case of Iraq, in contrast, much of the
backfire occurred before the attack. This suggests that an early
warning system, raising concern about potential attacks, can be a
potent way of resisting injustice.

Acknowledgements

I thank Don Eldridge and Tom Weber
for valuable comments on earlier drafts. This research is funded by
the Australian Research Council.

Notes

1. Pew Global
Attitudes Project, Views of a Changing World (Washington, DC:
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, June 2003), p.
1.

25. Rampton and
Stauber, op. cit. On war and the media more generally, see Susan L.
Carruthers, The Media at War: Communication and Conflict in the
Twentieth Century (Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 2000); Phillip
Knightley, The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as Hero and
Myth-Maker from the Crimea to Kosovo (London: Prion, 2000); Peter
Young and Peter Jesser, The Media and the Military: From the
Crimea to Desert Strike (Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan,
1997).

26. The
National Security Strategy of the United States of America
(Washington, DC: The White House, September 2002); "Bush outlines
strategy of pre-emptive strikes, cooperation," USA Today, 20
September 2002.